Debralee Scott

At the pinnacle where the ladder springs most narrow ormost yellow, in my lily-bedded attending whichis also my affording, there’s this capital-Sspecial dumpster. It’s kitted out

with the masonry of mustaches and caged light like malice,stripes of all those silverskin patches where the pajamajean’s been treated like a bench ratcheted around kagels. (All personalityis memorized.) “Ovens,” a gentrification of garbage says, and gargles,

and all trending ends up in a pickled vaudeville. What aboutdegrees of learning? Cataracts? Harumphs? Underneath the pollen and pamperedgrass and GMO saguaro this dumpster’s fecal espresso has swallowed, I expectthe fumes of throwaway luxury hide some spire, as peroxide as bare legs

rubbing themselves to a fever underneath the hemof a premature spring’s cardigan. And at that holy needle’stip, a campaign sticker, stuck cattywampus to a backpackcasually deforming its hang before it gets up

the gumption to walk its purse away from the likes of mymembership. (Purging or breaking? More like surfing simulatedwith a den’s cushions.) And inside that backpack there’s a bus stop,crowded with the sun that spots itself on tinted windshields,the action-deprived film behind which the claw-tooth bucket

of an excavator rides a bicycle frame’s weightlessly invertedhypotenuses into laneless forests of curbs, aerating shoelaces,solar granite decomposed in the weak acid of pedal steel and fiddlesolos. Here, in this development, mosquitos are cinderblocks of fire ants, mosquito

hawks in the sowthistle a damp coiffure shaken loose by the passing of animpatiently executive stranger. In these dim and leafy hallways, reflectionsare hazmat-ed in acorns, vested in the burlap that says“in so many words” in just that exact number of words. Five finger discounts

are out of order inside the crepe myrtle’s drawstring bags. Anthropomorphic plaidsclimb the sheathing and slash at the caution tape lensing the dumpster’spsychosomatic cameras. Every step further into the discardeddepths promises a last step: darting, winking, betwixt.

The columns, each a perfect pull, lie dormant, just like sacrednesschalked within its own loop. Arcing is its own two-way traffic, butestranged, like an android prodigy, from what aching boundaries it stillbewares. (No simile wants to be inside an ejaculation.) Assuming, that is,

that I begin again as I remember beginning:outside the dumpster’s big body, high above the conductive andbelly-flopping into permitted phyla, standing (gourmet orgourmand) at a machine yet to return some article of mine within

the ripped demarcations of a hypothetical kitchen.

Gwen Wells

My mother added a perfectly civil 1:18 pornstacheto the galaxy’s favorite farm-boy’s head. Masculinity is an opera anythingbut hygienic; in the empyrean, no inappropriate uncles dandle backstage wives. However old he is, a boy going rebel strives to sprout the Chevrons that manly mencome with. No, let’s reserve the beard talk; waggishswagger is for princesses. The follicular destiny of beardsis scrutiny, not barrettes or cornrows interning in tall and bristly abundance. Allow how a beard is hidingsomething to hide the fact of its hiding from us. Unless, of course, it gets Biblical and we see a beard for a beard.

First we tweezed the electric ulnaright out of our milk-rajah's arm. One of five pointsof articulation, a shoulder for a soldier harrowingjoysticks. Along that affirmative hail and underneath his incipient drone, we uncharneled his man-cave,the slot where you’d slide salvation’s junk into and free from playtime. Just like I rememberit, a wish in reverse, the bigblast of futanari never unsheathes its instant forthwith, because length quests after length. This was action, a trick of vinyl twisting and us neon extras deboned and all spitballing.As slow as collectormania Christmas, or as dull as Kickstarter documentary sunshine, the last crank had to make-do with a lever and a sequel of tugs.

Every street-sweeper driverhas a potential for melting, andevery crayon, however honor roll or randy, is fixed, likewise fixed to a finger’s hold. Unlike dolls, which our American sibling everybodyknows you hug. Ew; gross. This one earliestexperience with the unicum doesn’tapprentice with a synod . Strip a tubular manhood of what it teases and all you’re left holding is the gutless cul-de-sac of an airdancer’s come-hither career. A domineering imagination may have applied the Dirty Sanchez but it’s mom who tattooed the deed.

What did we learnby watching her watch us as we slurpedup engrossment’s puerile and licorice sagas? The relief of flocculent gnawing. The pineal eyeis a chainsaw, so long as its force growls downstairs. NowI remember, and remembering settles the rickety Zen of my hiredhands down. I want a plastic nacre; I want a merkin to match the drapes. And I want, how I want, for each little flagellation of sublimationto keepsake one more jeweled filament in my shag of distraction so vast andas shallow.

Ann Druyan

Emoluments are car batteries and lumberjacksin time’s pay-per-view event against small towns.Squatting on wireless, she has to elbowGoogle in the throat to tag Yahoo! Answers:

why would anyone care to soaptheir windows? Shut-in perfumes sexther nostalgia with a bouquet of bygoneindustries: castile soap and chicory, for instance,rayon and piccadillies and lamp oil. Butsquares queer, brick pavementsstray from the spirit level, birdsong barkslike a Montezuma of dogs.It’s August.She can’t remember if she’d left the tape measureas taut as that, but now the hours chew Beeman'sand maybe it will. Or maybe its graduatedtongue won’t snap back and bridge this money pit.

Dairy Queen breakfast and already the multitoolsare in a massive halftime hole. There, —in the drive-thru under the soft-core stagnationof catalpa tree beans, three SUVs waitbefore she can trade on her novelnativity for an extra hunk of Texastoast. One Durango red, oneEscape white, one H2 blue.Instead of “Have a blessed day,” the bustedFrialator voice on the other end of the boxtells her “We could use your 5s.” Her yuppiefood coupon (yep, while she's at, she’ll be bringingthat back too) is traversed with creases onlyan automatic teller wouldn’trecognize for the crossroads they are.

In the rumble and across the delinquentlanguor that’s running away with her languishing,she’s knows there’s weight—it’s named“Here”—that can’t ever be cut. No bloodlessrevitalization in coming in through the slide of that icecream door.“Ma’am, here’s your parfait.” Betweentrack ballast and shiplap, its better to be lickedthan lick. Only strangers haggle afterthe window weights, and wonderif sashes are screwed as soon asyou submit to anachronistic handles.

Susan Oliver

I say why notgo down dowsingfor the scent of Mr. Sketch.Or bars where onlylocksmiths can scoreVIP accessand the stools run analog,on square waves.If punch permscrowd the negronisand cut off the floor,I can always thunderafter shells and coinslong intothe subdivided night.

Because freelancingat this living is sometumultuous M.C. Eschershit. Nineteen-fiftyan hour for lighthexadecimal industry.Specialization clipped me.I was once a halftonebutterflied in a newspaper,sprigs of pigtails sweatingthe urge of a reel mower.My dumb head was somewatermelon of a smilehappy for any rulesin my mom’s oneday at a time game.

All week it’s phosphorblocks and plasma dots:my kaleidoscopeis the atomic clockdownsizing its gearsin anticipationof an illicit attention’sDOA. The requestedfile is ready. Used310 times today, OK;reposting has no ceiling.This graphic needsa video. This Taiwanneeds an error message.This manga needsa flipbook and this rolloverneeds to work.

But what say someonepretends, just for a minute,that the office everyoneshares isn’tthe everywherethat’s nowhereanyone’ll ever be?I’m going ride pulseof a different ellipsis andhit the Staples I hate.At least they haveend cap displays.

ARTIST'S STATEMENT: My concern in these so-called “name poems” (themselves contributing to a longer and still-evolving sequence, tentatively entitled Acrostic Aspic) is with the conditions of celebrity as they are lived by non-celebrities, i.e., “you” and “me.” Or: I suppose these poems are all about minor celebrity, as these titles borrowed from the outer limits of fame suggest. Our subjectivities so often cohere in the back and forth between narratives intensely our own and those widespread narratives with which we cannot help but make contact, or which are in constant contact with us. But the latter narratives are so much more easily represented, not to mention “relatable,” while the former remain largely untranslatable. So this self-exchange can never be equal. Still, people live as they live, and their names mean something to them.

Joe Milazzo is a writer, editor, educator, and designer. He is the author of the novel Crepuscule W/ Nellie and two collections of poetry: The Habiliments and the forthcoming Of All Places In This Place Of All Places. His writings have appeared in Black Clock, Black Warrior Review, BOMB, Prelude, and elsewhere. Joe lives and works in Dallas, TX, but his virtual location is www.joe-milazzo.com.